Why is Coastal Wetlands Monitoring Important?
Improved assessment and monitoring of these important habitats will help us to manage water quality by understanding not only how water quality affects marshes but also how tidal wetlands affect water quality. For example, nutrient criteria may need to be more restrictive with continued loss of wetland services. Most fisheries and shellfisheries are sustained by tidal wetlands, which serve as nursery and foraging areas. Both migratory and resident birds and other wildlife depend on tidal marshes. A better understanding of marsh status and trends will help us to manage key living resources and healthy tidal marshes (especially salt marshes) are imperative as we begin to address the impacts of climate change and sea level rise. Fully functioning tidal marshes provide a critical line of defense to our coastal communities and sequester more carbon than any other habitat in our region. Loss of marshes will have a doubling effect on carbon in the atmosphere, because such losses lead to a dec
